Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity Herausgeber/Editors Christoph Markschies (Berlin) · Martin Wallraff (Basel) Christian Wildberg (Princeton) Beirat/Advisory Board Peter Brown (Princeton) · Susanna Elm (Berkeley) Johannes Hahn (Münster) · Emanuela Prinzivalli (Rom) Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt) 69 James E. Goehring Politics, Monasticism, and Miracles in Sixth Century Upper Egypt A Critical Edition and Translation of the Coptic Texts on Abraham of Farshut Mohr Siebeck James E. Goehring, born 1950; 1968 BA from UC Berkeley; 1972 MA from UC Santa Barbara; 1981 PhD in Early Christian Studies from Claremont University; currently Professor of Religion at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-152276-5 ISBN 978-3-16-152214-7 ISSN 1436-3003 (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbiblio- graphie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2012 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Laupp & Göbel in Nehren on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. The Greek and Coptic fonts in this work are available from www.linguistsoftware.com. Printed in Germany. For Linda Preface This volume represents an interest that has spanned my academic career. In 1983, I delivered a paper at the international conference on the Roots of Egyptian Christianity in Claremont, California, entitled “New Frontiers in Pachomian Studies,” in which I explored the nature of the available sources, noting their concentration on the movement’s early history and the relative dearth of information on its later years. While the pattern is fully understandable, it awakened in me an interest in the later years of the movement, which led me to the texts on Abraham of Farshut. This bore fruit in 1984 in the form of a paper delivered at the 1984 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature entitled “Chalcedonian Power Politics and the Demise of Pachomian Monasticism,” which appeared in 1989 in the Occasional Papers series of the Claremont Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. My decision in 1985 to accept a faculty position at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, resulted in new expectations and new scholarly connections. Interest in the documentary evidence of early Egyptian monasticism came to intrigue me in terms of the counter- evidence it supplied to the familiar literary accounts. Numerous papers and articles resulted, which led eventually to my interest in the role of the desert in the real and the literary construction of monastic origins. Throughout the years, however, as time permitted, I found myself return- ing to Abraham of Farshut. I carved out time to gather photographs of the manuscript pages, to transcribe and translate them, and to visit the museums and libraries that housed the originals. As my efforts progressed, Abraham of Farshut began to surface with increasing frequency as the subject of paper presentations and published articles. The decision to focus on these texts for my 1995 presidential address to the North American Patristics Society marked a turning point. While publication of the critical edition remained many years away, my focus had returned more fully to Abraham of Farshut. As with any research project, and especially one that has spanned so many years, numerous people and institutions that offered help, insight, and support deserve credit and thanks. Many elements in this volume depended on them. Tito Orlandi kindly supplied me with copies of Antonella Campagnano’s preliminary microfiche editions of White viii Preface Monastery codices GB and GC, which contained the primary texts on Abraham of Farshut. The late René-Georges Coquin shared with me his interest in the project as well as his own transcriptions and photographs of the manuscript pages housed in the Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Stephen Emmel responded to numerous queries, checked various transcriptions against the originals, and helped resolve the codicology of the manuscripts. Apart from his wisdom and help, the codicological analysis and resulting pagination would be less secure. My colleague Mehdi Aminrazavi translated the Arabic section on Abraham of Farshut in the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion, and Febe Armanios kindly agreed to review it. Other scholars to whom I turned with specific questions and/or requests over the years included Monica Blanchard, Douglas Burton-Christie, Elizabeth Clark, Hans Förster, Gawdat Gabra, Clayton Jefford, David W. Johnson, Rebecca Krawiec, Bentley Layton, Mark Mousa, Caroline Schroeder, L. Stoerk, Janet Timbie, Richard Valantasis, Tim Vivian, and Colin Wakefield. I would also like to thank Ilse König of Mohr Siebeck, whose friendly help in the typesetting process accounts for much of the volume’s pleasant design. I must thank as well those who facilitated my work at the various libraries and museums that currently house the manuscript pages, and supplied permission to publish them in the present edition. These included the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Biblioteca Nazionale “Vittorio Emanuele III” in Naples, the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, the Insitute français d’archéologie orientale in Cairo, the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Both those with whom I corresponded and those on site were helpful and encouraging. I am also grateful to the Royal Library in Copenhagen which supplied the relevant pages from Zoega’s papers used in this edition, and to Paul Peeters of Peeters Publishers who granted permission to include the excerpt on Abraham contained in the Panegyric on Apollo. At my own institution, staff and students played an important role in the production of this volume. Our director of interlibrary loan services, Carla Bailey, offered essential aid, as did our departmental secretary, Cindy Toomey. Student requests to teach introductory Coptic generated opportunities to focus on the language and in some cases actually read pages from the panegyrics on Abraham of Farshut. Josh Sosin and Andrew Crislip, who went on in Classics and Early Christian Studies respectively, proved particularly capable and generated interesting insights into the text. Brent Arehart, Jennifer Hendricks, and Clelia LaMonica worked on the indices and proof read copies of the manuscript. Preface ix Financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1993 and 2002–03 and from the University of Mary Washington on numerous occasions facilitated the acquisition of photographs, travel to various libraries and museums in Europe and America, and most impor- tantly the time necessary for uninterrupted work on the project. Finally, scholarship does not arise in a vacuum. Mine is grounded in a broader world of family, friends, nature, and pets. They form the ground from which my scholarship grows and to which I return constantly for stability and nourishment. Conversations over dinner, a glass of wine shared on our deck, birding, canoeing, hiking, and camping offer the respite from the demands of research and writing that for me make it possible. Nature resuscitates me; it is my “desert.” Through it all, Linda has been there with me. Her unflinching support has nourished me through the long process of this book’s production. She is my escape, and I cannot imagine accomplishing what I do without her. For these reasons and more, I dedicate this book to her. Finally, I must take note of Mieze and Cleo, who have been a constant presence in our lives these last few years. Mieze, in particular, was intimately involved in my project. Each morning when I headed up the stairs to my office, her feline form raced past me to my desk. As I sat down to write, she was there, brushing up against the computer screen, demanding attention. Only after the appropriate amount of petting, defined by her of course, did she settle down on her desktop cushion, allowing my work to begin; and then, as I worked, she occasionally caught my attention, glancing up in a fetching manner that demands acknowledge- ment (another welcome respite in the day). She, like Linda, made the work easier. Fredericksburg, Virginia 2012 James E. Goehring Table of Contents Preface .................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xiii Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: The Manuscripts ...................................................................... 5 A. White Monastery Codex GC ................................................................ 6 I. Codicology .................................................................................... 7 II. Paleography, Orthography, and Language...................................... 9 III. History of the Codex and Its Publication ...................................... 13 B. White Monastery Codex GB .............................................................